Gooseberry Wine 2020 - Fifth Bottle (5), 20th November 2021

 Liz & David hosted an evening of pure jollity on Saturday. Phil, Angie, Claire and I all gathered there to eat Take-Out pizza and make merry. It has been a little while since I had such unadulterated fun and there was much laughter. Also much wine, of which this bottle of gooseberry was one. It really is a good wine, with a sweetened gooseberry taste. The postscript to this evening, though, is that on Wednesday Liz sent round a message to say that she has Covid. I hope to remain unaffected.

A current selection of the wine I have on the go.

Gooseberry Wine 2020 - Fourth Bottle (2), 17th October 2021

Sunday night was our monthly Zoom Dinner Party with Rachel & Duncan, and that required a bottle of something decent. The menu was Prawn Curry and a dhal (dahl?), meaning the wine needed to be a sharp white. This describes gooseberry perfectly and neither the bottle nor the food disappointed. Again we had a lovely, boozy evening and once the Zoom call had ended Claire and I cut ourselves a slice of Gugelhupf (bless you!) I had made earlier in the day and watched The Crown.

The Gugelhupf

Gooseberry Wine 2020 - Third Bottle (1), 25th-26th August 2021

Instructions for a beetroot & goats cheese risotto directed me to use 150 ml of dry white wine. Having nothing real in the house, I thought that gooseberry would work so opened this bottle. My supposition proved correct: the risotto was excellent and it is a good one to have in my repertoire. The wine wasn't bad either, though not as dry as I had remembered. It was improved by chilling. There was a glass left for Thursday - a day in which a dental hygienist looked at my teeth after four years. Torture!

A fallen and sawn up tree on my walk.

Gooseberry Wine 2021 - The Making Of...

For years we have been saying that our freezer is too small for all the excess fruit that I pick, and that we must investigate getting a small freezer just for wine making. Claire and I are great procrastinators. If you require further evidence, you only need to go into our front room. We have owned the house for six years now and have yet to paint the plaster.

Some of our gooseberries, close up.

Anyway, on Sunday 10th July I went on-line to investigate mini-freezers and about ten minutes later had ordered one. It arrived on Monday. Why I took about four years or so over this, I do not know. Mostly it will be filled with gooseberries this year. Our bushes are rampant. We have at least three varieties and all have had a good summer.

Gooseberries being washed

On Sunday 11th July I went out to harvest 6 lbs for this wine. Those in the back garden are not as far on as those in the front, but I still picked a few from each bush, getting lightly scratched in the process. Why are gooseberry plants quite so defensive of their fruit?

More gooseberries!

In the end, I picked 2 oz less than the 6 lbs required, but that was Good Enough. I put them in our largest cooking pot with 3 pints of water, brought them to the boil and let them simmer for 5 minutes. The whole lot went into my bucket with 2 lbs 14 oz sugar and a further two pints of cold water. I added a teaspoon each of yeast, nutrient, pectolase and tannin just before going to bed and by Monday morning it was all fermenting nicely

Gooseberry wine fermenting

The wine got one stir each day and I planned to put it in its demijohn on Friday evening. However, by then I had worked until 6:15 and was in a thoroughly bad mood, so I left it until this morning, 17th July.

Gooseberry does take a long time to put into its demijohn, though I had Radio 3's Record Review to keep me company. The wine is going to produce a huge sediment.

The first demijohn of Gooseberry Wine

It did - massive! I racked this on 20th August and I fit in most of 2 pints of water with 4 oz sugar dissolved.

I am making a second batch, this time crushing the berries rather than boiling them and 5 pints of boiling water. I started on Sunday 23rd August and racked it on 25th September. The sediment on this one was slightly smaller, but I put in 36 fluid ounces of water with 2 oz sugar dissolved.

Gooseberry Wine 2020 - Second Bottle (3), 3rd June 2021

I cooked Hot Tomatoey Garlicky Asparagus on Thursday, which is not as successful as its cousin, Hot Tomatoey Garlicky Prawns - or even the mackerel variety. The asparagus gets lost in the mix. 

Jayne joined us for the meal - the first person (other than us) to eat inside our house for well over a year. It was excellent to be able to play host again. I opened a bottle of Gooseberry Wine to mark the occasion, though Jayne was driving and had none. Whilst Claire thought that this was little better than a mid-week bottle (on account of it not having sufficient gooseberry flavour), I disagree. It is semi-sweet with a bite, and well worth getting stuck into.

It was my mother's 80th birthday the previous day

Gooseberry Wine 2020 - First Bottle (6), 21st February 2021

Claire requested a wine that was white and sharp and nice. Though I ran through a few options that fulfilled two of the three, the end result as always going to be Gooseberry. I am also being trained by Claire to break my rule of waiting a year before having the first bottle of anything. Her argument is that if the wine is nice at the point of bottling, why wait any longer? As always, she has a point.

This gooseberry wine was fabulous - white and sharp and nice.

The day had been a typical Sunday - make a cake in the morning (Cranberry Bread - a total success) and go for a local walk in the afternoon. Happily the gang of threatening looking teenagers I encountered down an alleyway merely said "Hello" rather than mug me.

Cranberry Bread

The recipe.

If you want to see how this wine was made, click here.

Gooseberry Wine 2019 - Fifth Bottle (1), 29th January 2021

Friday was a day of meetings and broken cafetierres. Actually only one broken cafetierre, but I bought it only two weeks ago to replace another that I broke, so total cost per cup of coffee is higher than I would like. Two of the three meetings were about me - my favourite topic of conversation. One just a legal quarterly meeting and the other to set 2021's Objectives. I opened a fine bottle of gooseberry to recover.

My collection

Gooseberry Wine 2019 - Fourth Bottle (4), 24th December 2020

In contravention of current law, Mom and Pop came over and we treated them to a cup of tea indoors. Had this been tomorrow, that would have been legal. It is a Looking Glass World in which we live. Mom was keen to see the advent windows, so we walked the street with Mom taking great care over getting a perfect photograph of each. I have rarely been so cold. It was wonderful to see them, though. The very worst thing about this Covid situation is not being able to spend time with those that you love.

As they left I opened this gooseberry wine, which is a decent bottle, and drank it, wanting to blur reality's edges for a short time.

One of our Advent Windows (but from the
inside during daylight hours)

Gooseberry Wine 2019 - Third Bottle (3), 25th September 2020

I opened this bottle after a monumentally busy day. I had 12 completions, plus 3 exchanges and all my other work besides. There was never a feeling of being overwhelmed, however, and I came away with the sense of a job well done.

I opened this gooseberry wine to the news that Leeds has gone into a local Lockdown. This is depressing - we will not be able to go to Cambridge in a fortnight's time (which in itself was a replacement for a holiday in the Netherlands) and I won't see my parents for several months. Still, the gooseberry wine had a real taste of Chardonnay, so it wasn't all doom and gloom.

Taken on 25 September

Gooseberry Wine 2020 - The Making Of...

On Saturday morning, 11th July, while chatting to Claire in the front garden, I glanced at our gooseberry bushes and noticed two things: one of the bushes, at least, was laden; and some of the gooseberries had started to split. This meant that they needed to be harvested, and they needed to be harvested Now. I grabbed a plastic bowl from the kitchen and set to work, getting only mildly scratched in the process.

One of our bushes, though small, produced three pounds. The rest, added together, gave a further four and a half pounds - and one of our bushes (the one which I suspect is popular with an audience of pigeons) only had two. That's two gooseberries, not two pounds. My harvesting activities were interrupted by a lunch spent with Rodney, meaning that I was somewhat less focussed and efficient during the second session.

Once the gooseberries had been picked, we needed to decide what to do with them. Ordinarily I use 6 lbs for wine, but Claire made a good case for wanting to make gooseberry tart and gooseberry jam and gooseberry other-stuff. However, our freezer is already too full to store that weight of fruit. So, I checked my recipe books and Brian Leverett has a recipe using only 4 lbs, which is a good compromise. In fact I used half a pound more than this, put them in a pan, covered them with 3½ pints of water and brought them to the boil, giving them about 5 minutes of boiling time. This broke down the fruit, so I didn't need to mash them.

I put the boiled gooseberries and liquid into my bucket, poured over a further 2½ pints of (cold) water and 2 lbs 14 oz of sugar. When cool enough, I added a teaspoon each of nutrient, pectolase and tannin.

A vigorous ferment

Over the next few days I stirred the wine, if I remembered, and then on Friday 17th July I put the wine into its demijohn. This took longer than ideal: the sieve kept clogging, so getting the liquid through was a slow process. The wine is fermenting vigorously, and I anticipate a large sediment.

If you want to see how this wine turned out, click here.

Gooseberry 2019 - Second Bottle (6), 24th May 2020

Chris posted on Facebook that he had dusted off the Family Recipe Cookbook and made pineapple chicken. Claire suggested that I do the same whilst she was at work on Sunday, and that we would need a sharp white to go with it. The recipe was remarkably easy, and very 1970s. I spiced it up with an orange pepper, garlic and a couple of chillies, and the result was delicious. It may become a regular dish rather than something remembered vaguely from childhood. Gooseberry wine was exactly the right choice: bone dry, distinctly gooseberry and, as wanted, sharp.

Taken on 24 May: Shadows of 

Leaves on a Birch Tree

Pineapple Chicken

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sherry

1 tblsp sugar

1 tsp soy sauce

2 tsp cold water

1 tblsp corn flour

4 tblsp pineapple juice

1 or 2 celery stalks

1 onion

1 pepper

Clove or two of garlic

A chilli or two

4 tblsp olive oil

4 slices canned pineapple

1 lb chicken pieces (cubes)

Marinate chicken in cornflour, water, salt, sharry, soy sauce for half an hour. Slice celery diagonally, onion and peppers lengthwise, chop chillies (leaving in such seeds as you dare), crush garlic and saute them in the oil until they look about right. My recipe says 2 mins, but that sounds like a ridiculously short time. Add in the chicken until brown. Slice the pineapple in wedges and add with sugar and juice. Simmer until thoroughly heated. Serve hot with rice.

Gooseberry Wine 2019 - First Bottle (2), 2nd May 2020

I am really happy with this Gooseberry Wine, and as it looks like it is going to be another bumper year for gooseberries, I will make it again in a couple of months. It tastes absolutely of gooseberries and is sharp, dry and refreshing. It will be an ideal summer drink to have with mackerel. On Saturday we drank it with stuffed tomatoes and asparagus in filo pastry. The day had been spent on a sunny 12 mile walk from Roundhay Park to Thorner and back as part of my Lockdown Walking Holiday. I was exhausted by the end of it and my current average step-count for May is phenomenal. 

My lunch spot on 2 May

If you want to see how I made this wine, click here.

Gooseberry Wine 2017 - Final Bottle (5), 26th December 2019

Gooseberry is a fine bottle of wine: as sharp as fruit wine gets with an absolutely distinct gooseberry taste. I decided that I should share my final bottle of this with company. We had a house full of Taylors and all the chaos that implies. It also implies a continual battle with the washing-up, which refused to stay done. So many mugs in such a short space of time!

A photo I took on the same day as this diary entry

Gooseberry Wine - Fifth Bottle (6), 4th August 2019

Claire spent all of Sunday at work, this being our first full day home after another riotous week at Rydal. I got the better deal and spent most the day with Bridget and her family at Brodsworth Hall near Doncaster. It was just lovely to see them again and Bridget's children are a delight.

One of the day's tasks was to select a nice bottle of wine that would go with curry and put it in the fridge. My wife is very demanding and works me too hard. Anyway, gooseberry wine was my choice - it is splendid and has matured nicely.

Brodsworth Hall seen through a Cypress

Gooseberry Wine 2019 - The Making Of...

When we moved house four years ago, we brought three gooseberry bushes with us. From these, we cut twigs and plonked them into the clay-based soil in our new garden, expecting them to remain twigs (only browner). Instead, they flourished and where we had three gooseberry plants, we now have many. Some are doing better than other, and their fruit ripens at different times - but for the first time, we had sufficient gooseberries for me to make gooseberry wine.

Picking the fruit is not without its hazards - gooseberry bushes have vicious thorns and after each harvesting session my arms looked as if they had gone several rounds with a pissed-off cat. There would be frequent cries of "Ow" as I spiked my hand again.

The berries were of various quality. One bush - the one that produces the earliest, smoothest gooseberries - had abundant, clean fruit requiring little washing. Another had the odd scab and a third produced fruit that was entirely covered in brown patches. I made sure that I washed the fruit as best I could before freezing it.

When it came to making the wine on Monday evening, 15th July, I measured out 6 lbs of gooseberries - most of which had been frozen - and mashed them in my bucket. That that had come from the freezer mashed easily and those that had not mashed not at all. I cut as many of those that I could catch into half and mashed them again.

My last gooseberry wine was a little dry, so I added an extra 2 oz sugar this time: 2 lbs 14 oz: and I poured over five-and-a-half pints of boiling water. Next time I should use only 5 pints.

On Tuesday morning I added a teaspoon each of yeast, nutrient, pectolase and tannin. On Saturday evening, 20th July, after an afternoon chamber-music party in Wetherby, I put the wine into its demijohn. This was a relatively quick process and the resulting wine is an opaque greyish-green. It will clear (he said, confidently) to a sparkling yellow.

If you want to see how this wine turned out, click here.

Gooseberry Wine - Fourth Bottle (2), 23rd-24th January 2019

I think that this Gooseberry Wine has improved with keeping (even thought it is less than a month since our last bottle). There was not the one-note sharpness to it. Gooseberry (of course) dominates the flavour but there was something more besides. If we can up our gooseberry production I will continue to make this.

On Wednesday, when it was opened, I had taken the day off work due to a heavy cold and spent much of the day asleep. It is a rare event that I am off ill, but Claire sent me back to bed in the morning, despite my protestations. By Thursday I was starting to feel like me again.

The Gooseberry Wine in question

Gooseberry Wine - Third Bottle (1), 28th December 2018

Well, this is tart. Not unpleasant by any means, but you wouldn't want it any drier. The gooseberry flavour powers through and I have been given permission by Claire to make it again in years where there is a gooseberry glut.

We drank the wine on Friday night (how can it be Friday already?), enjoying being at home with no entertaining to do. I had spent the day watching Christmas television, planning a trip to Coll in March and reading Treasure Island - one of those books that I have never read, but has seeped into my consciousness. There is barely a character's name that is unfamiliar, though the story is unknown.

Gooseberry Wine - Second Bottle (4), 5th-6th April 2018

My phone is ancient and temperamental. Every so often it decides not to receive texts or phone calls for a few days and then vomits them all out at once. Hence, on Thursday night whilst I was out for a curry and beers with Darren and Nigel, I did not get Claire's text asking what bottle she could open. Had I done so, I would have replied "Not gooseberry". Never mind.

I had a couple of small glasses on Friday night - I had been feeling delicate all day. This wine is bone dry and as sharp as needles with a gooseberry punch. I wonder how it will mature, but at this rate I am unlikely to find out.

This is what my phone looks like

Gooseberry Wine - First Bottle (3), 4th March 2018

Ordinarily I wait a year between picking fruit and drinking the first bottle of wine. However, I think that gooseberry may be a wine best drunk young, so I have opened this early. Also, it was a suitable bottle to take round to David & Liz's: we have given them six cuttings from our gooseberry plants and seeing as I have converted Liz to making her own wine, I thought I'd show her what gooseberry wine was like. This was a high-risk strategy: I have had some spectacular failures with gooseberry. It paid off. The wine is bone dry and has a bite to it. There is a slight fizz and the gooseberry taste is there on the first sip before retreating into a prosecco feel. This wine is definitely a hit.

Any guesses as to why I have chosen this image?

If you want to see how I made this wine, click here.

Gooseberry Wine 2012 - Final Bottle (6), 24th -25th December 2017

Leaving this bottle nearly four years since the last one has changed its flavour, but only marginally for the better. It now has the taste of an aged country wine - so broadly sherry like - though there is a hint of its original sharpness. Far from undrinkable, but not your actual Nice.

I opened this after the annual Christmas Eve Bentcliffe Drive Party, but as that involved several glasses of real wine (made from grapes!), we did not finish the bottle. That task was saved for Christmas Day, during present opening. Sooz, Bob and Judith were here, meaning that it was the usual present lucky-dip. My best one was a tea-towel with the Periodic Table printed on it. There wasn't a worst, but the most ephemeral was a bag of Pork Scratchings.